There Was No One Left to Speak Out
by Megana
Summary: The horrors of Nazi Germany as seen through a criminal mastermind's perspective. Do not read if the imagery of the Holocaust is too much to experience through the written word.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

_Everyone I know tells me that I apologize too much and worry too much about what people think of me. I also have this tendency when it concerns my writing._

_History fascinates me. One thing that particularly captivates me is the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. As disturbing as the idea is, the incomprehensible fact that people can be so inhumane to others just because of their race has its own level of attraction._

_I do not support mass genocide or genocide at all. The reason I wanted to put a GMD character in Nazi Germany was because I could imagine him there. I thought the opportunity was too good to pass up._

_I promise to remain true to any facts and events.

* * *

  
_

London, 1902

I passed a little boy on the streets being pushed around by some other little boys. "Dirty little Chink!" they yelled, throwing mud at him.

I took one glance at the little Chinese boy, who was trying his best to leave. He did not appear to know what the other boys were saying, but he seemed to understand that he was unwanted by them.

I pushed the scene out of my mind as I walked away.

* * *

In my throne room, I came upon a group of my henchmen in a heated debate. Normally such heated discussions are over women and money, but tonight the topic was politics. Bill had a copy of the Communist Manifesto in his hand, while Rafael was wielding a paper that I later found out was the American Bill of Rights. Rafael was going on about free speech when I came into the room. There was a general hush as all eyes turned upon me.

"What is going on here?" I demanded, narrowing my eyes.

"Ju- just a debate, Professor," Bill stuttered.

The unease in the eyes of the others was apparent from the look of shock on their faces. I relished the power I had over these blockheads for several moments, drawing out their anxiety.

"A debate? Really?" I said, turning to Rafael.

"Ye-yes," he stammered.

"And what are you debating?"

"Po-po-politics."

"Politics?" The room was deathly silent. I burst out laughing. "What do you two know about politics?" I howled.

Everyone hesitated; then joined in on the laughter, greatly relieved.

I stopped laughing. "What are you all giggling about? Stop this nonsense immediately and go do something useful!"

The laughter died down. "Did you idiots hear me? GET OUT!"

They scrambled for the door, pushing and shoving each other, each not wanting to be the last out.

When the last of my men had vanished, I let out a deep sigh. I played some Mozart on the gramophone, and then poured myself some champagne. I wearily went to my throne and sat down, massaging my eyes.

Being surrounded by a bunch of incompetent morons twenty-four hours a day does something to the nerves.

I simply tried not to think for a while. But my mind slowly drifted back to the Chinese boy on the street.

What did I care for a Chinese boy? Nothing at all. I wondered why he had been made the subject of ridicule. I supposed it was his Oriental appearance. I tried to push the thought out of my mind.

Instead I tried to concentrate on the Basil voodoo doll on the shelf. Why did I hate Basil? I tried to think of a single reason of why I hated him when another question popped into my mind. Would I hate him even more if he were Chinese?

No, I don't believe that I would. But the question continued to bother me. 'Well, what if he was Arabian? Or Jewish? Or African? Or French?'

I listened to Mozart as I fought to overcome the question in my mind.

'No, I wouldn't hate him! I hate him for himself, not for his nationality.'

'But is there the slightest chance that you would?'

The music began to fade...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

* * *

Nazi Germany, 1942

What did I know of war? I suppose Basil of Baker Street and I had always had our own personal war with our never-ending game of cat-and-mouse. Little did we know that a global war could end all that.

I neither supported nor opposed the Third Reich. In fact, I had never believed that it would get so much backing nationally. But as popularity for the Fuhrer grew, so did my conviction that it would be best to join forces with the Nazi Party.

Don't get me wrong; they never wanted me in their ranks to begin with. I was an internationally known criminal. Great Britain would want my head, and they knew that they might have to give it to them to prevent a war before they were ready for one. There was also the concern that I might to sabotage the system in such a way as to benefit myself and foil their plans.

Top officials, however, reasoned that my mathematician brain would be most essential for their political aims. They pardoned me for my crimes as I worked with the best scientists Germany had to offer, creating new weapons and methods for their war machine. While working for the Nazi regime I managed to pull off a few major crimes; the SS chose to look the other way.

In late August of 1939 I kidnapped a wealthy baroness's daughter. Basil of Baker Street, with Dr. Dawson in tow, made the journey into a country running under a totalitarian system that had only an ideological idea of right and wrong, not a rational one. I knew what was coming. I believe that Basil suspected it himself.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Soon after, Great Britain and France declared war.

The timing was perfect. Basil, with his usual disregard for authority, immediately attracted the attention of the Gestapo. His failure to comply with the secret police got him and Dawson arrested. He was sent to a work camp on charges of being a Marxist and a spy.

With the start of the war, I was regarded as an unmistakably loyal Nazi.

I had power and prestige. I was also one of the richest men in Germany, if not in all of Europe. No longer the fugitive hiding from the law, I faced the citizens of Germany and other countries as a free man, my actions opposed by no one. True, I had my own private agenda in the criminal world, but as long as it did not interfere with the government's own goals the SS did not care.

I was comfortable with this new lifestyle. The war machine constantly called to challenge my mind. Basil was stuck in a concentration camp where he would probably spend a good many years, or even die. Nothing tainted my future.

_Until she came back into the picture.

* * *

  
_

I knew that Basil had left Meg Sarentis in London when he had come to Germany. I reasoned that I could easily lay my hands on her when the Germans marched into London.

But then what would be known as the Battle of Britain began. The British fought against the Germans to determine the fate of their island. The Luftwaffe cost London and England more casualties each day. It was impossible to know who lived and who died.

Then the Fuhrer gave up on Britain, and instead opened up a front in the East against Russia. One of my contacts in London went to Baker Street, only to discover that Meg had not been there at all during those several months in 1940. It was not until a few months later that she was discovered outside of Oschwiecim, Poland.

Many of my own henchmen had been promoted to high positions in the SS. Fidget was an Untersturmfuhrer (second lieutenant), a position that brought him into contact with many prisoners in the concentration camps. It was he who found her.

Fidget had been inspecting Auschwitz, a new work camp, with some other SS officials when they observed a young girl being beaten by one of the guards for trying to run away. Just as the group was passing, a young woman ran to the girl and tried to shield her from the blows.

The guard grabbed the woman by the hair and threw her fiercely to the ground. He then proceeded to club her.

All this time Commandant Hoess, the head of the camp, paid no attention to the scene before his eyes. One of the SS officers commented to him, "That girl is not wearing the Star of David."

Hoess studied the girl for a moment before replying, "She's Aryan."

Fidget regarded her more closely; her features seemed familiar to him.

"Communist?" the SS officer asked.

"Think she's a Jew-lover. Girl!" Hoess barked sharply.

The guard stopped beating her. She got up and brushed herself off, wiping some blood off of her nose.

"What are you here for?" the Commandant asked.

"Breaking the Nuremburg Laws," she answered.

Another SS officer shook his head. "And why would you be so disloyal to our Fuhrer, Fraulein?"

Fidget's eyes grew wide. He knew who she was when she said, "Why does the Fuhrer accept criminals, like James Ratigan, with open arms?"

"You would dare speak out against one of Germany's finest men, Fraulein?" the SS officer continued, his voice low and threatening.

She said nothing, staring straight ahead.

"Answer me!"

She made a small grimace, and forced herself to say, "No, sir."

"Good," the officer patted her on the head, much like he would to a naughty child who had just been reprimanded.

After the inspection, Fidget arranged to stay in the camp for a few more days to keep an eye on her until I could get over to Oschwiecim.

* * *

_I will try my best to eliminate confusion. The Nuremberg Laws took away many of the rights of Jews. Auschwitz was made into a labor camp in 1940. It was not, at that time, a death camp. In 1942 or 1943 Auschwitz was made into a death camp, where they killed as many as 10,000 Jews a day. Rudolph Hoess was the commandant of Auschwitz, until 1945, when he fled before the Red Army's approach._

_An Aryan is a person of the blonde haired, blue-eyed race; the race that Hitler felt was superior to everyone else. But Aryan people also had specific features, more Germanic or Nordic, I think._

_Meg is not Aryan. Hoess only called her that to call attention to the fact that she was not an "undesirable." I think most Germans were called Aryans anyway, just to be able to distinguish themselves from the Jews, Gypsies, and other peoples._

_Fidget would not have had that high of a rank. He was handicapped. The Third Reich, besides murdering 6 million Jews, also killed 4 million Gypsies, Communists, blacks, homosexuals, and handicapped people (both physically and mentally handicapped.) There is no way they would have allowed him to even join the SS. _


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

* * *

Unterscharfuhrer (sergeant) Rolfe motioned to the line of girls. "Here you are, Herr Ratigan. You can have any you like."

I shook my head. "I don't want any Jews. I want an Aryan."

"I cannot do that, Herr Ratigan. The Aryan inmates are only here for the duration of their sentences. If we started to send them to other countries or other camps..." He shrugged. "Too much paperwork."

I lit a cigarette. "Show me the Aryan inmates. I don't care about paperwork. My accountant will take care of that."

* * *

One half-hour later a group of five non-Jewish girls stood before me. I recognized Meg immediately from her dark chestnut hair and her Danish features. Her dress was starting to wear thin. Her hair hung about her haggard face. She was a picture of an empty shell.

I perceived almost immediately that she had recognized me. She could not hide behind the other girls, so she chose to bow her head down instead, hoping her hair would hide her face.

I pointed to her. "You!"

She pretended that she had not heard me. Rolfe stepped up to her. "Step forward!" he barked.

She reluctantly did as she was told, still looking down. I walked up to her. "What is your name?"

She was silent for a minute. Then she mumbled something. "Speak louder."

"Nada Knezovich," she whispered.

I turned to Rolfe. He referred to a clipboard in his hand. "Knezovich... Knezovich... ah, yes. Nada Knezovich, Danish, 21 years old, serving a sentence of five years for breaking Nuremburg Laws by giving aid to Jews and Gypsies."

I had not expected her to change her name, but I then reasoned that it would have been much worse for her if they had discovered that she was a British citizen. She must have had fake papers.

"Do you have any domestic skills, Fraulein?" I asked, deciding to play along with her little charade.

"No," she said, emphasizing the word as if it was an untruth.

"You better not be lying," Rolfe threatened.

"I meant, Herr Direktor, that I do not have many domestic skills," she said.

"Do you have any family, Fraulein?"

She looked up into my face for an instant, and then quickly looked down again. "No, Herr Direktor," she said softly.

I smiled and motioned Rolfe away from the group. "How can she be traced if she has no family, 'Oberscharfuhrer'?"

"Herr Ratigan, I am an Unterscharfuhrer," Rolfe corrected me.

"How can she be traced if she has no family, 'Oberscharfuhrer'?" I repeated. (An 'Oberscharfuhrer' is a 'senior noncommissioned rank; a.k.a. a step-up from Unterscharfuhrer).

Rolfe finally comprehended the meaning of my words. "Come with me, Fraulein Knezovich."

* * *

_Ranks such as 'Unterscharfuhrer', 'Oberscharfuhrer', and 'Untersturmfuhrer' are SS army ranks. The SS was Hitler's own Secret Army. I am not positively sure what their role for the Nazis was. It is known that they fought in battles. But the SS was also a widely political organization. There were branches of the SS, but I won't get into all that._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

* * *

There has always been something irresistible about Meg that drew me to her. At first I believed it was her physical appearance. But as time past, I realized that it was her defiant spirit, her unwillingness to submit to me, her strength in her own convictions and her ability to stand up for them in any circumstance. She knew how to rub me the wrong way, and she would do it any opportunity she got. I knew she was afraid of me, but she did such a good job of hiding it that I found much pleasure in trying to bring it out of her. The complexities of her emotions always gave me a refreshing new challenge, and I wanted to unlock them.

When Meg was delivered to my home outside of Berlin, however, I realized that her character had gone through a marked change. I had found it odd that she had hardly protested when she had been taken from Auschwitz, but thought nothing of it at that time. In my home, however, her old spark did not return.

I brought her into my study as soon as she arrived.

"Well, well, well. Nada Knezovich," I smirked.

She stared at the picture of the Fuhrer above my head.

"You will have to serve more years for those false papers."

She remained silent.

"Why are you here, Meg? To look for that pipsqueak Basil?"

There was no audible response at the mention of Basil's name.

I looked at her papers on my desk. "You offered a pregnant Jewish woman a ride in an automobile. You spent a week in Montelupich for that. You were released and then were caught trying to give food to Jews and Gypsies in Auschwitz. You spent six months in Montelupich, and another three weeks in Auschwitz." I stood up and began to walk around her. "What makes me curious is why? What do you care for the Jews?"

She finally looked at me. I saw something in her eyes that for a brief second seemed like fear. She quickly looked back to the picture on the wall.

"Answer me, Meg."

She was trembling. "I... I... I don't know."

I stood in front of her and looked down at her face.

Something made me ask, "Don't you care if you live or die?"

"I have already died," she said dejectedly.

This pitiable mess in front of me could not be the Meg I knew and, dare I say it, loved. The Meg I knew had spirit and courage and complete hatred for me. This Meg, however, had given up. She had accepted her situation.

"Who broke you?"

Her eyes grew wide with terror. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Who broke you?"

She did not answer. I was getting impatient. I wanted to shake the answer out of her. I gripped her arms, but then restrained myself.

"Get out of my sight," I growled in a strained voice.

She looked up at me, too terrified to move.

"Get out! Now!" I shouted at her.

She broke away from me and scurried out of the room.

I poured myself some cognac. I drank it, wondering how the SS had got to her. I was greatly disappointed that they had got to her before I did. There was no longer a challenge. She would probably submit to anything now.

I threw the empty glass against the wall.

* * *

Over the next few days I had little time to think about Meg. The Armaments Inspectorate had not received the proper paperwork for a shipment of new bombs, and the mess took days to straighten out.

One afternoon in my study, when I finally had time to think about her, I realized what must have gone wrong. I had heard stories of Montelupich, the prison in Krakow. There were rumors that they tortured prisons, beat them for hours on end. There was nothing anyone could do about it; it was the system. But this was all information I had received from other SS officials, mostly when they were drunk.

I made a mental note to send Fidget to Montelupich the next time he was in Krakow.

I shuffled through some papers on my desk on Basil. He was in Buchenwald and had made several, almost successful escape attempts. The next one would be his last. Dr. Dawson had been transferred to Auschwitz to assist the doctors there. I laughed to myself; he and Meg had just missed each other.

Meg came into the room with a bottle of wine. She filled up my glass, and then turned to leave. "Leave the bottle," I said. She turned back to me and set it down. "And turn on the radio." She did as she was told and left the room. A piece from Wagner started to play.

I sipped the wine, thinking about the Jews. I had personally had nothing against them. But the whole country was in a state of insanity about them. I had heard of the ghettos in Warsaw and Krakow. Perhaps that was the furthest the Jewish situation would go. I honestly did not care. I was not Jewish, so why should I?

I heard something coming from the next room. At first I ignored it, but when it persisted, I began to lean in closer to the wall from which it was coming from. It sounded like someone was humming to the tune on the radio.

There were five other servants in the house: one older man, two young men and two girls, all Jews. But the males were most likely outside and Danka was cooking in the kitchen. I had a pretty good idea who it was.

I left the room and looked through a crack in the door to the drawing room. Meg was humming to herself as she dusted the mantelpiece.

I moved around a little, hoping to be able to observe her more closely. The floorboards groaned under my weight.

Meg stopped humming immediately. She shot the door a nervous glance, and continued cleaning in silence. I waited a few more minutes, but Genia was coming down the stairs, so I continued walking along the hallway back to the study.

I had seen a rare moment of bliss in Meg. She had forgotten, for a brief period of time, those months in Montelupich. I wanted to see more of those moments.

As the day progressed, I tried to brush the idea away. By the time I went to bed that evening I knew I could no longer resist it. I had to see her in these private moments. I had to.

* * *

_Montelupich was a prison in Krakow, Poland. In Schindler's List (the book, not the movie) they mention that there were rumors of torture attached to the place (they beat people for hours, executed prisoners in their own cells, etc.) Besides holding prisoners, it was also the headquarters for organizations such as the Gestapo, the Jewish Affairs Office, and the SS among other things._


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

* * *

The more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. It brought back the challenge of my relationship with Meg. I suppose that I had nothing better to do with Basil in a concentration camp and no nemesis to plot against.

Crime had lost its former glory. The war was making it more difficult to tell the difference between normal citizens and criminals. Bribes and crimes were running rampant, not resisted but encouraged by the police. Wealth had never been a major goal in my own criminal pursuits. What point was there for me to do what everyone else was already doing?

I had the feeling at the back of my mind that what I was about to embark upon was extremely childish. I suppose it was. But I had never been one to care about what others thought of me.

I knew that the only way I could ever observe Meg in private would be at night, when she was not taking orders from me. It would have to be in her bedroom.

Meg slept in the basement with the two Jewish girls, Genia and Danka. I had hardly cared at first where she was put, but now I realized how hard it would be to ever see her in private; there was hardly enough room in there for one person, let alone three young girls. She was Aryan and they were Jewish; it would be perfectly normal to any outsiders if she was placed somewhere else.

"But where to put her?" I said to myself, pacing my room as I dressed to go out for the evening. It would be very bad form to have her placed in the bedrooms upstairs. If she were placed in the kitchen, I would have no means of watching her in private.

I stood in front of the mirror, hand poised, ready to tie my cravat. 'The attic,' I thought. 'Perfect.'

* * *

The attic had two entrances. Behind a door on the second floor a narrow staircase led to the attic. The second entrance was through a trapdoor in the ceiling of my closet.

The attic was big enough to have it separated into three sections. I decided that one section would be for the old furniture and items that I had not bothered to get rid of. This would be the largest section. The second section was to be Meg's bedroom. It was big enough for a bed and a small table.

The third section was only accessible through my room. I had a ladder brought up from the garage and placed in the back of my closet. All I had to do was set up the ladder and climb it to the trapdoor. The room was small; it just barely give moving room for my large frame, standing room only. Carpet was been laid down to muffle any sound I might make. But the beauty of the whole project was the mirror. I had a mirror made especially for the purpose of looking in on Meg. It separated the two rooms, hers and mine. While she could not see anything but her own reflection in it, I could see everything that she was doing. It was my window into her personal life.

It took the carpenters only a few days to put in the walls and install the mirror. They did not ask questions.

* * *

I grinned to myself in the mirror that Meg would soon be looking into. She would never know.

I went downstairs to the dining room, where dinner had been laid out for some guests I was having over that evening. I was in a very jovial mood.

The dinner was not very interesting. The SS men I invited talked about politics and the war, always the war. Their girlfriends were dressed smartly and attractively, but there was not a spark of sincerity or intelligence among any of them. They nodded in agreement with everything their boyfriends said. But I drank and laughed with them anyway. It is always good to have many acquaintances who think they are your friend to fall back upon.

Meg and Genia served the guests. Genia openly despised the girls, knowing why they were there. I watched her accidentally spill some wine on Emilie, Lasner's girlfriend. The girl did not even think that Genia had done it; she thought Lasner was responsible. I could hardly keep myself from laughing at her stupidity.

Around two o'clock the SS men finally left with their girlfriends. I went upstairs as the two girls cleaned up the parlor. After about an hour I went back downstairs again, to find that the girls had retreated to the basement.

At the top of the basement stairs I heard them murmuring in low, secretive voices. The talking stopped abruptly as I clattered down the stairs. They all jumped up and bowed their heads down,; this was their normal way of standing to attention without having to look at me.

I sighed, and paced the room, which was hard to do in more than two strides. So I gave that up and folded my arms, facing the girls. "Meg, get your things. You will no longer be sharing the same quarters with Genia and Danka."

Meg's head shot up. "What?" she said in disbelief.

I tried my hardest to hide a smile. She was acting more normal. It made me feel more powerful.

"It is unhealthy for an Aryan to be spending so much time with _them_," I said, motioning to the Jewish girls, "especially if you want to be sent back into society anytime soon."

Meg balled her fists. "_Them_?" she spat out, enunciating the word as I had. "They are better people than you will ever be!"

"Meg..." Danka whispered.

"I don't care!" she hissed, glaring at me.

I grabbed her by her nightshirt. "Come with me, Fraulein," I threatened, "before you force me to give your 'friends' much grief for your insubordinate behavior."

Meg's face fell in defeat. She nodded. I let go of her. She retrieved her few articles of clothing and followed me up the stairs. I led her to the attic, to her small room. She looked about it in dismay. I, meanwhile, was bursting with excitement.

"This is where you'll be spending the next couple of years, Fraulein," I said in a self-satisfied tone. "You better learn to like it, or else it will be a very long couple of years."

I turned to go when I heard her say in a low voice full of contempt, "I hate you."

I turned back to her, grinning wickedly. It was as if someone had managed to put power into a syringe and inject it in me. "I know you do, my dear."

"I am no 'dear' of yours," she snapped.

I reached out and gripped her face with my hands, Forcing her to face me, I bent down close to her, still leering at her. "Watch yourself, Fraulein. You are going to need my mercy someday."

She did not response. I turned to go, but as I was closing the door she said, "You're wrong. You are going to need their mercy."

My blood froze at her tone of voice, her ironic certainty. I quickly slammed the door and locked it, then took a deep breath. I was a little shaky, and felt weak at the knees. I leaned against the wall, trying to gather the strength to continue down the stairs without falling over. In another minute I began to feel a little better. I went down the stairs to my own bedroom, and then lay down on the bed, not bothering to take off my clothes.

"What a fool you are!" I reprimanded myself, forcing myself to let out a chuckle. It sounded fake and strange. "Remember, you have power!"

'Power?' a little voice inside my head said mockingly. 'What power? She terrified you!'

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" I growled. I made toward my closet to spy on her in the mirror when I suddenly arrested my steps. Instead I poured myself some vodka and downed it, letting its warmth spread over me.

"I will get you yet, you little wretch," I vowed.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

* * *

I awoke late the next morning with a buzzing and aching head. I suppose it was from all of the drinking I had done last night. I dressed and went downstairs.

Instead of having breakfast, I drove over to an armaments factory in Berlin that I owned. Around three in the afternoon Fidget came.

"Fidget, I want to talk to you about Montelupich-" I began.

"Professor, your cook said that…" He stopped, realizing he had interrupted me.

I gave him a quizzical look. "What did my cook say?"

"She... ah... she... ah... well.... she...."

"Fidget! Get to the point!"

"Ah, yeah... she wants to know if you... ah... intended to keep Meg Sarentis locked up in the attic all day-"

"_What?"_ But before he could answer I was headed for the door. Fidget followed behind me. "Didn't Danka have the keys?"

"She..." Fidget trailed off, trying to catch his breath and keep pace with me, "...she said that she only had the key to the liquor cabinet."

"Damn it, I can't give those Jews anything! What about Josef?" (Josef was one of the guards I had guarding my house.)

"He thought you locked her in there for a reason."

We had reached my car, but I stopped. Instead I fumbled with my keys. Finally I found the key to the attic, as well as the key to my car. I handed them to Fidget. "Get that goddamn girl out of there! Then come back here immediately."

Fidget took the keys and my car and drove away. An early autumn breeze cooled off the band of sweat that had broken out on my forehead. The wench! If she had not said anything to me last night, I would never have locked her in there. I was angry with myself for letting the stupid girl in there for so long, but I could not explain why.

Any power I had left was being drained from me.

* * *

I did not get back that night until late. Meg met me at the door, ready to take my coat and hat. She had gone back to her silent, serf-like behavior. A part of me wanted to apologize to her, but another part of me wanted to keep her locked in her bedroom for a longer period of time, watching her behind the glass.

But what I did was probably more than Meg could have bore with under normal circumstances.

"Meg, have a drink with me," I said.

She tensed as she hung my coat up. "No thank you, sir," she said tersely.

"Are you sure?" I grinned when she looked at me.

"Yes, sir."

I went to the study and took out some cognac. I heard the patter of her feet as she climbed the staircase.

"Meg..." I called.

She stopped; paused on the stairs for a moment, then went back down the stairs to the study. She stood in the doorway. "Yes?"

"Come with me."

I led her up the stairs and to my bedroom.

Meg stopped at the door, as if the room was a monster that would consume her at any moment.

"Come here," I said impatiently.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, thought better of it, and closed it again. She stared at the floor.

"Come here."

Surprisingly enough, she stepped into the room. I closed the door behind her and noticed that she was trembling again.

I sat down on a couch. "Untie my tie, Meg."

Meg gave me an angry look but complied. She stood over me, leaning over so she would not have to get too close to me. Irritated, I reached an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She blushed furiously as she undid the knot.

I started to feel that sense of power come over me again. I could not stop. "My cufflinks next, darling."

She was angry. She took off the cufflinks, but accidentally jabbed herself with one. She instinctively put her finger to her mouth, but quickly took it out again when she realized what she was doing.

I took a sip of the cognac when she went to put the cufflinks and tie on the bureau. She came back and stood at attention before me, probably dreading my next command.

"Sit down," I said, motioning to spot next to me.

She appeared to be debating whether she should do it or not. Finally she sat down, hands in her lap, looking straight ahead.

"Unbutton my shirt."

Meg jumped at the command. "I- I- no!"

"Don't play around with me, Meg."

She got up to leave. I grabbed her arm and forced her back down.

"Now."

She turned shyly towards me. Making a grunt, I grabbed her hands and pulled them to the top button, interlocked her fingers in mine, and moved them to unbutton the first button. When that was done, I moved her fingers down for the next one. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably as they moved down to the next button.

I held onto her hands until all the buttons were unbuttoned. My undershirt was showing underneath. Meg blushed even more. I was still gripping her hands in mine.

I had the power again; that was all I needed. I released her. "You are dismissed." She got up and walked out of the room, still shaking.

I went to the closet and set up the ladder, then ascended through the trap door to my little room. Meg was on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. I watched, enthralled at how upset I had made her.

She looked up at the ceiling and asked, "Why me? Why?"

"I've got you," I said smugly to myself, feeling like a god.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

* * *

The mirror became a window into a foreign world. I watched Meg in all types of moods. Usually her room was where she went to hide from me. I hardly ever allowed her to go to the kitchen anymore when it was not to serve my guests or myself a meal. I was sure that she probably ran to her Jewish friends when I was out of the house, but that did not concern me.

I forced her to go through the same ritual of undressing me as I had on that first night. I was fascinated by the effect I caused when I later spied on her in the mirror. Some might call it an obsession. I, however, saw it as a sort of research-study.

I had left a working radio in the attic, and Meg eventually found it. At first she used it to listen to news of the campaign in Russia. But sometimes she would turn on some music and began to sing in a low voice and lightly dance about the room. When she thought that someone was coming up the stairs, she would quickly turn the thing off and shove it behind the bed. The short endings to these little bouts of pleasure greatly disappointed me.

Sometimes I found her praying, but she usually said her prayers in silence. Once in a while she would begin to talk to her god aloud, pleading for it all to end. At times like these I felt a little remorseful for torturing her so; but when it came time for me to undress I could not resist making her do it again.

Once she managed to sneak Genia up to the attic, and they conversed for a long time about the war and life before the war. Meg made promises to get Genia and Danka to safety. Perhaps to Switzerland or England.

I frowned as I watched this scene. That little wretch thought she could use me to bring them to safety, I was sure of it. Well, she would have to do a lot more for me than she had been doing if she thought I would even think about risking my neck for two Jews.

Many of the SS were displeased with my housing five Jews on my premises. They thought that I was being somewhat sympathetic to their position. In reality, they were cheaper to hire and less likely to complain. I had employed many of them at my armaments factory before thousands of them were deported in October of 1941 for the same reasons.

If any of the Jews working for me escaped, I could be blamed. I could wind up in a prison camp.

* * *

One night while Meg was taking off my cravat I asked, "Meg, what do you think of the war?"

"The war?"

"Yes. Who do you think will win?"

She started to take off my cufflinks. "The Germans are doing very well in Russia."

"That is not what I asked. I want your opinion."

She went over to the bureau and put the cufflinks away, then came back and sat down. She started to unbutton my shirt, but I stopped her. She was surprised, but not as surprised as I was at myself. "Your opinion, Meg."

She looked at her hands. "I honestly don't know."

"Who do you want to win?"

Meg wrung her hands in despair. I could almost see her turning the answer over in her mind. "I know what you're thinking," I continued. "You're thinking, 'What's the right answer?'"

She looked at me helplessly. "Professor, you already know my answer. Why can't we just leave it at that?"

"Suppose the Russians came marching into Berlin tomorrow. Would you turn me in to them? Would you tell them to shoot me?"

Apparently this question was even more uncomfortable than the last one had been. Meg opened her mouth in surprise. "What? What a ridiculous thing to say!"

"So you're admitting that you would tell them to shoot me like a dog," I persisted.

"No, I... I never said anything of the sort!"

"Would you turn me in, have me killed?"

"I... no," she said uncertainly.

I could not help laughing at her. "For such a good actress, you are quite a lousy little liar, my dear."

Her face turned red. "Well, what do you want me to say?" she snapped.

I wondered myself. What had I been hoping she would say? I wanted to think that I had not really wanted her to say anything, just make her answer difficult questions that would trap her in a corner and make her say things she did not want to say to further destroy her sanity. Anything she said wrong could always be used against her if she ever came begging to me to help Danka and Genia.

But perhaps I had been hoping that she would say that she would rather I live than die a criminal of war. Maybe I had been hoping for one of those little redemption speeches, like the one she gave to me when she had been stabbed by a poisoned blade and was having hallucinations. I remembered the warmth of her little body as I held her by the fire to keep her warm.

Suddenly I snapped out of that peaceful image. My thinking had no logic to it. It was ridiculously far-fetched. Meg was poisoning my mind.

"Damn it Meg, why do you have to be on your guard around me all the time?" I growled.

"Why can't you just leave my life alone?" she said quietly. "Leave me and everyone else in it alone?"

"Why, leave you alone? Leave Basil alone? And Dawson?" I laughed. "Sure, I'll leave them alone!"

Meg looked up quickly at me. "They disappeared in Vienna... Where are they?" she cried. "You had something to do with it, didn't you? Didn't you?"

I grinned. "The world was saved from yet another Communist."

She seemed confused. Finally realization hit her. "You told them he was a _Communist_?"

I lit a cigarette. "Actually, the Gestapo found his attitude to be extremely Marxist. I had nothing to do with the arrest."

"And Dawson? What about him?"

"He was arrested along with Basil."

She seemed stunned. "Are they... dead?"

I laughed. "Why should I tell you?"

Meg glared daggers at me. "Can't you be compassionate for once?"

"Compassion comes at a price nowadays, Fraulein."

"What?"

I laughed again.

"If I do something nice for you, you have to do something for me," I said.

"That's not how it works, Ratigan."

"In this day and age, it does."

She became quiet. After a few moments, she said, "What do I have to do for you to get you to tell me anything about Basil and Dawson?" she said in an angry singsong manner.

I got up and began to walk around the room. "Well, what could you do for me?" I said teasingly. Meg grimaced. I walked behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She jumped a bit at my touch. "Kiss me."

She spun around. "I beg your pardon?"

I smiled wickedly. "You heard me. Kiss me."

"You... you will tell me the truth? About Basil and Dawson and their whereabouts and their fates?"

"Yes."

"Fine," she whispered grudgingly, more to herself than to me. She got up and walked up to me, placing a small kiss on my cheek.

I raised an eyebrow, enjoying the idea of dragging out this task of hers. "That's the best you can do?"

Meg's face was a deep shade of red. She stood up on her tiptoes and gave me a peck on the lips. But as she pulled away I grabbed her by the shoulders and pressed her against me, pressed her lips against mine. Her face was hot and her small body was shaking once again. She pulled away from me, but I grabbed her and kissed her a second time.

Finally I let her go. She held on to the back of the couch as if for support. "Now tell me," she said softly, her voice shaking.

I rested my hands on her shoulders, her back still facing me. Then I leaned in close to her ear. "Basil's in Buchenwald. Dawson's in Auschwitz."

She spun around. "I never saw Dawson..." she began.

"He arrived shortly after you left, my dear."

"Are they alive?"

"As of now," I said.

Meg's eyes betrayed panic and worry. "They're not going to kill them?"

"A Communist is a Communist is a Communist," I grinned.

"How can you support a government like this?"

"Well, I'm not Communist, so why should I care what they decide to do to the Communists?"

"What if they come after the sewer ra-..." she stopped.

I knew what she had nearly said. "What was that?" I asked, my voice low and dangerous.

"Nothing," she whispered.

"Nothing?" I gripped her arm and began to step toward her. She cried out a little because my claws were digging into her skin. "What were you going to say?"

"Please let go," she begged. "Please..."

"Is there something strange about my appearance, dear?"

"No... Nothing at all!"

I shoved her into the door. "Get the hell out of here. GO!"

She pulled the door open and stumbled out, her feet pattering against the floorboards as she fled to her room.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

* * *

With the recent air raids in Berlin, I was now conducting most of my business within my very own home. SS officers and Armaments Inspectorate employees came by on a daily basis. The house constantly buzzed with activity. And Meg and Genia served them all with the same adopted attitude of servitude.

Besides my accountant, my secretary, Majole Gethe, shared office space in my house. She was a supportive nationalist and unfailing Nazi in all aspects of her life. She had a tendency to eavesdrop, hoping to catch a double agent or some piece of gossip. I found it hard to bear with her at times because of this. But she was the only one who knew how to properly run my business, so I tried to leave her alone as much as possible.

* * *

I was at a Christmas party at Untersturmfuhrer Schendel's house. The conversation drifted from topic to topic, until Schendel mentioned the near-escape of a mouse in Buchenwald, the camp he oversaw.

"This one particular mouse keeps trying the most outrageous escape attempts," Schendel said, laughing. "Once he dug from his barracks to about 200 yards from the perimeter fence, but one of the other mice in the same barracks reported him!" Everyone laughed.

Haupsturmfuhrer (captain) Rymer said, "There is no loyalty among these people. Even their own kind turn against them."

"What else has he done?" one of the young women asked Schendel.

"He once found a blind spot where the guards in the perimeter towers would not see him, and dug his way under the barbed wire. He was gone for almost 5 hours that time."

"This is exactly why they need to be locked up; they're getting too smart for their own good," the woman said.

Everyone nodded in acknowledgement.

_Too smart_, I thought.

* * *

I was led to a cold and dank concrete prison. A guard opened the door and let me inside.

The room was dimly lit from the winter afternoon light. Basil had just gotten to his feet. He was much thinner than I remembered him, but he still had a look of determination in his eyes. He was still willing to fight.

His eyes grew wide, and the old hatred flared in them. "Ratigan," he said with contempt.

"Well, well, well. I had hardly expected you to be in these labor camps for so long. Having trouble escaping, old boy?" I grinned broadly.

"Oh, it will work Ratigan. I will get out. And when I do, the first thing I am going to do is bring you to justice."

"Is that so?" I laughed. "Look around you, Basil. This isn't Britain. I have much influence over here. Only you will be hailed as the criminal, not I."

"How long will the charade last, Ratigan? Face the reality of the situation. Germany has too many fronts: the Atlantic, Africa, and Russia. It is only a matter of time until one or all of these falls. And then you will have to abandon the dreams of this regime."

He did have a point. Probably the worst thing, strategically, that the Fuhrer could have done was give up on Britain before they surrendered. Then those damned Japanese had to get those damned Americans into the war. But it was not lost yet for either side.

"Russia has practically already fallen, the Atlantic is impenetrable, and Africa is going very well for our army. Your hope of one of the fronts falling is mere fantasy, Basil."

I did not know it at the time, but Basil saw that I had a point too.

We stood in silence for a few moments.

"So this is where the most infamous criminal in the world comes, to this den of thieves and murderers," Basil said. "Really Ratigan, I would not have expected even you to sink that low."

"That's the beauty of it," I said. "I am not participating in all of this 'ethnic cleansing' that the government is supporting. They give themselves more work, the war goes on, and I get rich. And you are left in this... this hole, to rot!"

"Doesn't it bother your already twisted mind that so many innocent people are being tortured and killed every day?" Basil asked.

"It's not my problem," I shrugged. "But it is yours, because you would not be here if it wasn't for their fear of Communists."

Basil let out a cold laugh. "I wonder who got me arrested for that in the first place," he said sarcastically. "I would not have been too surprised if it had just been me, but Dawson too?" He started to chuckle to himself, as if the idea was very funny. It was not characteristic of him to laugh at a grim situation like that. I wondered if he was going crazy. After he had finished, he continued, "Why him too?"

"He's associated with you. Isn't that enough of a reason?" I said, grinning again.

"You are the most depraved, corrupt, immoral, despicable scoundrel."

"And what are you going to do about it?" I sneered. "Checkmate, Basil. I win. I am not the one stuck in this camp, not the one who will get killed. You only have one more shot at escaping before they kill you."

"Funny, that's what they told me the last time I attempted an escape. And I tried another, and look..." he motioned to the cell. "I'm here, alive."

"That was because you did not actually escape the last time. They caught you before you managed it" Basil shook his head. I continued, "Face it, Basil. I have all the cards in my hands. I could order them to kill you in the blink of an eye, Dawson too. Your days are numbered."

Basil grinned. "They why haven't you ordered them to kill me yet?"

"Because I want you to suffer so much that you beg for death to come."

"Impossible," he said.

"Welcome to hell, Basil. It can only get worse."

"How?"

"You're being transferred to Bergen-Belsen. They're turning it into a death camp."

"How can I suffer if I am to be killed there?"

"You will not die immediately, Basil. You will find a way to stay alive, for a while. Then, after you experience hell... you will die."

"One of these days, Ratigan. One of these days..."

"Tough luck, old boy," I smiled wickedly. I turned to leave. Just then Basil jumped on my back and began to strangle me. I tried to get him off of me, but I could barely get enough air for the strength. Finally some guards ran in and pulled him off of me, beating him.

As we left the cell one of them said to me, "Don't worry, Herr Ratigan. We will make sure that he has an appointment with the gallows."

"No, leave him alive... for the time being," I said, looking in at Basil, who was smiling as if he was possessed. "He'll meet his end soon enough. Oh, and Basil," I added, grinning broadly. "Fraulein Sarentis regrets that she could not be here today."

Basil looked confused. He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. I pulled out a photo from my pocket and threw it into the cell. "She came to Germany looking for you, and ended up in Auschwitz. She's now working as my maid. Funny old world, isn't it?"

Basil was looking at the picture. He seemed speechless. Finally he said, "You are the most depraved creature ever to be born."

"Too bad for you," I said, walking away.

"Watch your back, Ratigan, because I will kill you," he called out.

"Have fun at Bergen-Belsen," I shot back.

The encounter left me with the feeling that I did not know my nemesis as well as I thought. Basil had never taken to foolish fantasies before. His belief that he would kill me was a fantasy. I was invincible.

* * *

_Sorry, nothing really "_Great Escape"_-worthy about Basil's situation. I really do love that movie; I just can't use it in relation to a Nazi concentration camp. Besides, I forget half of what went on in the movie because I have not seen it in two years._


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

* * *

It was a particularly dreary evening in early March. The rain had not ceased to pound all day long. Majole was wrapping up her work, complaining about the long walk home she would have to take in the rain. I, however, was bothered by something else.

Basil had been executed in Bergen-Belsen.

Instead of feeling complete satisfaction, as I had always thought that I would at finally winning the final battle between us, I felt a void. It was as if some of the essence of life had been sucked out of me. I finally realized that Basil had been more than an enemy. He had been an obsession, something to challenge my mind when mathematical equations could not, something worth breathing for and living for each and every day; my own true meaning of life. It was ludicrous; especially when, looking back on all the years he had spent in concentration camps, I had not felt that way.

I tried to imagine that he was still alive, to see if I could still somehow retain a purpose for my own life. But the letter on my desk could not deceive me.

I heard Majole leave by the front door.

I put on a coat and took a walk in the rain.

* * *

I knew something was wrong as soon as I came back. Poleck, one of the boys, and Danka were whispering in the kitchen. They stopped abruptly as soon as I walked in, looking guilty of something.

"What are you doing in here?" I demanded.

"I was... was looking for some... lye," he said uncertainly.

"Why would you need lye?"

"I... uh, I... well..."

"Come here, boy."

The boy walked over slowly. I pulled out a pistol and began to toy with it. I could see the boy shaking from head to foot.

I wondered how a Jewish boy and a Danish girl could have the same symptoms of fear for completely different reasons. Poleck feared for his life, Meg for her honor.

I pushed the thought to the back of my mind to examine more closely later. Poleck was still standing before me, as if his own fate hung in the balance. What was I saying? His fate did hang in the balance.

"Poleck, Poleck," I said in a reassuring tone, putting my arm around his shoulders. "There is no need to hide anything from me. Why were you in here, neglecting your duties?"

He took a deep breath, sill afraid, wondering what the right answer would be. Finally he said, "It's Meg."

I was puzzled. "What about Meg?"

"She's distressed, sir. She's locked herself in her room. I was just checking on her."

I was even more puzzled. Poleck was risking a punishment from me to check on an Aryan? It baffled me so much that I dismissed him immediately after that and headed up to the attic.

It was there that I saw her, grieving in such a way that it almost seemed unreal. She had obviously been crying, but now she was pacing back and forth, kicking the bed, the walls, punching her mattress.

"I hate you! I hate you!" She was quietly yelling to herself. Then she started to cry. "Just die, James Ratigan. Die!"

Anger started to build up inside me. How dare the little snot-nosed bitch say anything like that about me!

"Basil, I'm so sorry Basil... Basil..."

It took me a moment before I completely comprehended what she had said. Then I remembered that I had left the letter open on my desk. So she knew.

She threw her pitiful specimen of a pillow across the room. "I hate you!"

She then took a bar of soap and threw it at the mirror.

The mirror shattered into a thousand pieces.

Meg stared, dumbstruck, at the falling glass, at the room beyond her little room, at the man she most hated and feared in this world. I stood speechless, the secret witness of her pain and suffering finally revealed. Time itself seemed to stand still.

She came back to reality and fled the room.

Everything after that felt like it happened in slow motion.

I went back down through the trapdoor since I could not fit through the mirror. When I made it out to the hallway, she was already halfway down the stairs. I followed her for what seemed like an eternity. She flung the door open to escape, but I had caught up to her by then.

I pulled from the door violently. She let out a blood-curling cry. I shoved her against a wall in the hallway, wanting to wring her little neck, wanting to kill her, feel her blood on my hands while I squeezed the life out of her.

Instead, I kissed her.

Her knees buckled, and she nearly collapsed. I held her up against the wall for support, still kissing her.

I heard someone clear their throat.

I broke away from Meg and looked at the open doorway.

There, standing in the rain, was Majole.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

* * *

Majole did not report me. This alone surprised me. Then I found out the reason why.

Several weeks after the incident with Meg, Majole came up to me while I was working at my desk. "Herr Ratigan, you know how loyal I am to the Fuhrer and to Germany."

"Yes Majole," I said, somewhat irritated. I did not care if she was a Hitler- worshipper or not, as long as she was running my business well.

"Herr Ratigan, the SS are rounding up homosexuals."

"I know," I said indifferently.

"Well, my brother.... He is a good German. He's just not right in the head. Sick. He... can't have a normal relationship with a woman... he..."

"He's a homosexual," I finished for her.

"Yes." Majole seemed relieved. "You understand, there's nothing wrong with his loyalty."

I raised my eyebrow. She was asking me to stand up for him, defend him, and prevent him from being taken away.

"Please, the SS came to his apartment last night... took him to prison. Could you tell them about his loyalty? They would listen to you."

I knew my answer immediately. I did not care about Majole's brother. I was not a homosexual, what did I care about her brother? Besides I knew the consequences of asking to defend him. The SS would think that I was a homosexual. No, it could not be done.

"I cannot do that, Majole. It's policy now."

"Please, Herr Ratigan," she begged. "He'll change. Please, he'll change!"

"No." She looked like she was about to cry. I could not stand it when women cried in front of me. It made me feel very nervous and gullible. "Don't you dare cry," I said angrily.

She glared at me. "We'll see how they respond to you kissing an enemy of the state!" she said dramatically, running out of the room.

Majole reported me, but because Meg was an Aryan, my embracing her was of little consequence to me. I was given warning, however, that any incident involving a Jew could have me sent off to a work camp or political prison.

Majole quit her position, so I found a middle-aged woman, Alexandra, to take over her job.

* * *

As the war and the "Final Solution" progressed, so did these incidents.

One day I found out that one of my own henchmen, Bill, had been arrested for being a Communist. The officials knew that he worked for me, so I was also thoroughly questioned. I met with Bill once. He begged me to tell them how faithful he had been to them, all the work he had down for them. I refused, knowing that they would suspect me next. Bill was not a vital part of my dealings; he would have to go through the system without my aid. He was eventually sent to a concentration camp.

There were a few more SS officials who were put in camps for espionage, being 'Communists', and even for being of Jewish descent. Haupsturmfuhrer Rymer's grandmother had been Jewish, so he was kicked out of the SS. Lasner was arrested because his girlfriend had Jewish blood in her as well. They came to me, asking me to defend them. I refused. What did I care? These men meant nothing to me. As long as the system was working for me, it was working.

Oh, how ignorant I was!


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

* * *

_Warning: This chapter goes more into detail of an execution. Please do not read it if this topic upsets you.

* * *

_Dawson sat in a train on his way to Lublin, next to one German soldier. He was being transferred to help control a typhus epidemic that had broken out there. He wondered why; usually such epidemics gave the SS a reason to get rid of the weak and sick.

He looked at the German civilians sitting around him. He was the only prisoner, so he was riding second class, a change from the cattle cars. They paid no attention to him. Dawson had been given civilian clothes before his transfer, so he wondered if they knew he was a prisoner or not.

The guard next to him had drifted off to sleep. Dawson, in the early days of his imprisonment, would have eagerly used this opportunity to escape. But too many failed escape attempts and their punishments, most of them with Basil, had killed his own fighting spirit.

A man wearing glasses and a cap got up and walked towards the end of the train. As he passed Dawson, he gently pulled the doctor's coat, motioning for him to follow. Dawson glanced at the sleeping guard. His heart skipped with a rare emotion: joy. Was this an agent opposed to the Third Reich?

Dawson slipped unnoticed into the next car, a baggage car. The man was working at a door.

"What is going on?" Dawson asked. "Who are you?"

The man turned toward Dawson. He whipped off his disguise. "Basil of Baker Street, my good fellow," he replied in the same way he had said it when they had first met on the Eve of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, years ago.

Dawson was taken aback. He had heard of Basil's execution, so the presence of the detective before him suddenly made the doctor lightheaded and faint. "Basil! You're alive! But... how?"

Basil instinctively put a hand on the back of his head. "Later," he said, flinging the door open. The German countryside whizzed past as the train thumped over the tracks. "The guard is drugged. He'll be awake in half an hour. We'll have to jump for it."

"Like during the Matthew Childres' case, I suppose?" Dawson grinned.

Basil looked sadly back at his friend. "Yes," he said softly. "How long ago it all seems. All right, on the count of three. One, two, three!"

They jumped.

* * *

It was in a barn several hours later that Basil finally told Dawson the details of his escape from death.

"One day the SS collected about one hundred and fifty people. One woman with an infant shoved the baby into my arms and asked me to take care of it. One of the guards saw this and dragged me into the group, still holding the baby.

"We were marched to the edge of a pit, a mass grave. One by one they shot people in the back of the head and pushed the bodies into the pit.

"I was terrified, Dawson. I had never been so afraid in my life. Previously I had thought of all the ways I was going to die, and I had always thought that I would go down fighting. But I was so afraid that I did not try to save my own life. Perhaps, because there was no reason for these deaths, that I thought that it could not be happening. I thought to myself: 'Maybe, if I am compliant to them, they will spare me.' I just stood there, watching men, women, and children being shot, some holding onto each other, some crying.

"A guard took the baby out of my arms and shot it too, throwing it into the pit. Finally I was pushed roughly forward. I had half-turned to protest when the one soldier shot me in the back of the neck. They pushed me into the pit of bodies.

"At first I thought I was dead. I did not feel anything. But then pain, an unbearable, searing, white-hot pain took over me. I was not dead. I had to wait for death to come. The cries of the dying reached my ears as more bodies fell on top of me. I can remember every hellish detail of it. Blood spurted from the pit like spring water. And I believed I would have to watch it all as I died.

"The last of the people were executed. I heard the soldiers leave that place, leave to kill more people another day. But I was still not dead, so I attempted to move some of the bodies off of me. I could not die beneath them. I somehow managed to climb out of the pit, and dragged myself away. I had to get away. I could not vanish into that mass grave and become a mere number of dead. Even if I died, I would not die in that grave.

"I managed to make it to a house in the countryside. Luck was with me, for the house's owner was a doctor not friendly toward the Nazi regime. He treated my wound. It appears that the soldier who had shot me had managed to miss my brain and spinal cord, but I had lost a good deal of blood. The doctor took care of me until I could fully recover.

"Now I am part of a resistance force against the Third Reich," Basil shrugged.

Dawson looked at Basil's neck. There was a silvery scar where the bullet had passed through the skin. "It's a miracle."

"Yes," Basil said sadly. "But I keep asking myself: Why did no one else survive? Why was I lucky enough?"

Dawson sighed. "There was nothing you could have done. It was the mercy of God."

"I'm beginning to believe that more and more each day."

"Basil, let's just go back home."

It was Basil's turn to sigh. "I can't. There are still too many in the concentration and death camps. I could not leave, knowing that innocent people are being murdered every day."

"We've been gone for so long," Dawson said. "Isabelle and Meg have not heard from us in over three years."

"Dawson, Meg's being held at Ratigan's house outside Berlin."

"_What?_ How did she get there?"

Basil explained all that he knew from what Ratigan had told him, as well as others in the resistance.

"We have to save her," he concluded, his eyes growing dark with hatred.

"You also want to kill Ratigan," Dawson said.

"If it is necessary, I will."

* * *

Basil and Dawson slipped past Josef the guard unnoticed. They headed to the stables. Peering in at a window, they observed a boy and an older man sitting at a table, eating a simple meal. They held back from contact, deliberating their next move. All distrust was dissolved when they saw the Star of David that marked them as Juden.

A quarter of an hour passed as they waited for one of them to come out. Finally Basil caught sight of a figure coming from the house. It was a boy with a Star on his jacket.

"Pst, pst," Basil called out from behind one of the bushes. The boy stopped and looked around him. "Pst," Basil repeated.

"Who's there?" Poleck asked, his voice small and frightened.

"A friend."

Poleck took a few steps away from the talking bush, unsure whether to trust this stranger. Basil emerged from the bushes. "Can we speak in private?"

"Wait here," Poleck said uncertainly. He ran into the stables. Basil and Dawson could hear some voices muttering. After about ten minutes Poleck returned with the elderly gentleman.

"I am Abram," the man said. "Come with me."

They followed them into the stables. "Who are you?" Abram asked.

"Can we trust you?" Basil asked.

"Depends. Can we trust you?"

"You can trust us," he reassured the man. "We're only here to help."

The old man and the two boys, Poleck and David, did not respond to this.

"Do you know a Meg Havers?" the detective continued.

They all looked at each other. "No..." Abram said slowly.

"Wait... I mean Meg Sarentis. She's an Aryan who works here."

"Oh yes, we know Meg. She works at the house with Genia and Danka."

"For Ratigan?"

"Yes. We all do."

Basil smiled gently. "Good. We're her friends."

"What are you doing here? She's a political prisoner. She can't leave. None of us can," Abram added bitterly.

"Can we trust you?" Basil asked again.

"Why? What do you want us to do?" Abram asked.

"All we need is for you to not tell anyone we were here."

"Why?"

"We are going to get her out of here."

David and Poleck dropped their jaws. Abram smiled. "Come with me, sir," he said, leading Basil to the other end of the stables.

Dawson looked at the two boys. They were only fourteen and sixteen. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bar of chocolate. He had been saving it for Meg, but he figured that they needed it more than she did. "Here," he said kindly.

The boys did not even look at the chocolate. "No thank you," David said.

"Please, take it. Give it to someone else if you like, but take it."

They looked uneasily at each other. "Thank you," David said, reaching out for the chocolate. Once in his hands, he studied the wrapped bar for a few moments, as if trying to retain a mental picture of it. He went off to hide it.

Abram and Basil returned. "Of course," Basil finished. "Come Dawson, let's go."

The pair slipped back into the bushes when they were back outside, waiting for Josef to complete his next patrol of the grounds before making their next move. "Tonight," Basil murmured, "we get them all out. Everyone. Meg, the two Jewish girls, and the two boys. The boys in the resistance will help. Abram may come, but he will be covering our escape if something goes wrong."

* * *

_And you all thought I killed Basil. Nah, I'm not that cruel._

_Basil's near-death experience actually happened to a young girl from a Jewish ghetto. She was shot in the back of the neck and somehow survived. I picked up a book in my history class once and started to flip randomly through it, and came across her horrific testimony, which I think was for the Nuremberg Trials. I'm not positive, though. _

_The resistance is completely made up. If there was a resistance (on a large-scale basis, mind you) I do not know anything about it. I do know that small groups of resistance to the Nazi regime did exist. Basil's resistance group is more organized, kind of like a guerilla fighters-type thing. And if you still don't understand, don't worry. The resistance doesn't play a major role in the story._


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

* * *

At one o'clock that morning, Dawson crept into the basement. "Genia? Danka?" he called out quietly.

The two girls bolted up in their cots. The taller of the two grabbed a broom and held it up like a weapon, the shaft shaking in her hands.

The doctor threw his hands in front of him, to show that he was not armed. "It's all right," he said softly "I'm here to get you out."

The girls exchanged uneasy looks. "Who are you?" the broom wielder asked.

"A friend of Meg's. She's in the attic, right? Is Ratigan asleep?"

"No," the smaller girl said, her voice quivering.

The taller one seemed more relaxed since Dawson had mentioned Meg's name. "Ratigan makes Meg... do things, at night..."

"_What?_ He hasn't-"

"No," she said. "At least, not yet. He caresses her and... Well, he won't leave her alone."

"Then we need to get her out before it gets worse."

* * *

"Don't you dare take one step near me!" Meg cried.

"Come over here, sweetheart," I said, laughing. I was quite inebriated, and was feeling pretty good. I had tried to kiss her and pin her down on the sofa, but she had slipped my grasp. Now she was behind the sofa. Each time I tried to go around it to get to her, she ran in the opposite direction.

"You're a foul, black-hearted, disgusting excuse for a living being," she snapped. "Spying on people behind mirrors. You're sick!"

"Ooh, aren't we vicious tonight?" I leaned over the couch to grab her, but she jumped back at the last second. I stumbled a bit, feeling light-headed.

She backed into the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. I began to move towards her. She made a dash for the sofa once again, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her towards me.

"Hello, darling."

"Goodbye, rat!"

I smiled sadly at her. "Meg, why so much hatred? Really, one could hardly guess that you were once going to become a nun."

"And I didn't because-" I sat her down on the sofa with me, stopping the words in her mouth.

"Megana, don't fight me. I always win."

She did not respond. I let that thought sink in for a few moments. I gave her a long, hard kiss. She did not protest.

It was at that moment that Basil burst into the room.

"Leave her alone, rat!"

Meg shoved me away from her. I stood up, feeling like I was in some horrible nightmare. "What is this?" I roared, pulling out my gun. "You're supposed to be dead!"

Basil pulled out a gun. "I told you I was going to bring you to justice. Meet your Creator, scum!"

"Wait!" Meg said suddenly. We both stared at her. "You're both going to kill each other!"

Basil and I glanced at each other. We were both about the same at shooting skills. "So?" we chorused.

"Haven't enough people suffered? Please, talk this out or something."

"Talk it out? You want me to talk it out with this... scoundrel?" Basil barked.

"Yes, do you really think I am going to let you go with him, my dear?" I growled, glaring at Basil. "Give it up, girl."

A hard, heavy object slammed into my skull. Semi-conscious, I dropped the gun and stumbled onto the sofa. There was another blow to my head, and everything started to fade...


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

* * *

I ran. I ran as fast as I could.

I drove to Denmark, tried to catch a boat to Sweden. I was running for my life.

Genia, Danka, Poleck, Abram, and David had all escaped. All of my Jewish housekeeping staff, all of them, gone.

Meg. That goddamn bitch. She had helped them; she had knocked me out with a vase so I would not go after them. She and Basil and Dawson all escaped.

No one could find them. I was not allowed to have Jewish servants anymore. But the damage to my pride was worse than the loss of my prestige.

As the Allied troops neared Germany a few of my factories were destroyed from bombs. My losses were great.

And then the war ended. I fled, knowing that I would be killed.

I stole a car, hoping to hide in Sweden.

Then I was caught.

* * *

I was tried as a war profiteer and Nazi sympathizer, and sentenced to be executed by firing squad.

On the morning of my execution, the guards came to my cell and led me outside.

There was a vast crowd of people, faces I recognized. Some were of my henchmen. Bill yelled, "Why didn't you defend me Professor? A Communist has as much a right as anyone else to live."

I saw Majole. "My brother is dead because of you!" she screamed at me. "Just because you would not let them see that he was still a person like you and me!"

I saw some of the SS officers, who mocked me. "You need our help now," they said. "But you are not going to get it, because you would not help others."

I saw Genia, Danka, Abram, Poleck, and David. "I was never a bad master to any of you," I said. I turned to the rest of the Jews. "I didn't kill any of your mothers, fathers, sisters, or brothers. I do not deserve to die!"

"You did not speak out for us," they said solemnly. "So there is no one left to speak out for you, because they are all dead."

I saw Basil and Dawson. I saw Meg.

I saw the little Chinese boy that had been in the streets. "Why did you not protect me?" he cried. "Why?"

"Leave me alone!" I screamed. The guards pushed me roughly against a concrete wall. The firing squad faced me, their faces blank and expressionless. They raised their rifles.

Meg recited,

_"'First the Nazis came..._

_First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-_

_Because I was not a communist;_

_Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-_

_Because I was not a socialist;_

_Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-_

_Because I was not a trade unionist;_

_Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-_

_Because I was not a Jew;_

_Then they came for me,_

_And there was no one left to speak out for me.'"_

"No... I didn't do anything!" I cried.

"Exactly," everyone said scornfully. "You did nothing to prevent it."

"FIRE!"

The shots sounded like breaking glass. I screamed.

* * *

_The poem that Meg recites was written by Rev. Martin Niemöller in 1945. He was put in a concentration camp from 1939 to 1945 for speaking out against the Nazi regime._


	14. Chapter 14

* * *

I fell on the ground, my scream ringing in my ears. I was drenched in a cold sweat. The gramophone was spinning; the record had ended. The champagne glass lay on the ground, shattered into small pieces.

I held a hand to my head, trying to gather what had happened. I had been dreaming... I had fallen asleep on my throne, had then fallen off the throne, taking the champagne glass with me. I realized that the shots, which had sounded like breaking glass, was actually when the glass had fallen to the floor.

I was here. I was back in London, in 1902, where I belonged. I was not some evil regime's tool. Basil was not in some death camp. Death camp? Germany had death camps? Fidget... he had died five years ago, on the night of the Queen's Jubilee. He was not alive. It was all just a dream... or was it? A nightmare? That's what it was, a nightmare.

"I am here," I said, trying to reassure myself with those words. "Of all the absurdities! You're the most infamous man in the civilized world. Getting yourself worked up over a dream!"

'A nightmare,' my mind said. 'It was a nightmare.' Or rather, it will be a nightmare…

* * *

The next day I saw an elderly Jewish man with his funny wide-brimmed hat walking down the street. Several young boys were throwing stones at him.

Chills went down my spine. 'He just had to be Jewish,' I thought angrily. Then I felt anger of a different sort. I grabbed one of the boys by the collar. "Leave him alone, you juvenile imp!" I barked. "How would you like it if I threw rocks at you?"

The boy struggled out of my grasp and ran off with my friends.

I sighed and continued on my way. The Jewish man started to come towards me. I quickened my pace and tried to avoid eye contact. The man ran up to me. "Sir," he said eagerly, as I tried to pass, "sir, I want to thank you for what you did for me. Sir..." He put a hand on my sleeve to stop me from walking off "Not many people would have done that."

"It's nothing," I said uneasily, trying to shake him off. "Nothing."

He nodded. "Thank you." He walked away.

An indescribable feeling came over me. I thought of the Chinese boy. I thought of my own childhood, the other boys calling me, "sewer scum," "big, ugly sewer rat." And I wished that someone back then had spoken out for me.

* * *

_Yes, it was all a dream for Ratigan. How else could I make him a Nazi? I mean, in that time period, Basil (judging from Sherlock Holmes' birthday) would be almost ninety years old! According to me, he'd be at least twenty years younger, but that's still too old for him to be chasing after Nazis._

_Thank you for being patient with the historical inaccuracies and placing GMD characters in an entirely different time period. I hope the story was informative and entertaining._


	15. Afterword

Afterword

* * *

_The story of The Great Mouse Detective in Nazi Germany ended over one year ago._

_On June 11, 2005, however, the authoress visited the Nazi concentration camp of Le Struthof in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, close to the German border. Here is her personal experience. _

_DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THIS TOPIC! I have a tendency to say exactly what is on my mind, and most of it does not approach the topic in a delicate way. No sugar-coating here, folks. If I get morbid or say something morbid, it was because I thought that it should be written that way._

_I wrote this memoir because the experience strongly affected me. I wanted to share it with whoever is interested._

_I also made some mistakes. Belphegor, you were right about the death camps. All of them were located in Poland. Our bilingual tour guide Carine had told us that they were in Germany, and I wrote it down without checking sources. My apologies.

* * *

  
_

France and Germany have fought over the region known as Alsace-Lorraine for centuries. It was one incentive for the Germans to enter into that conflict known as the Great War back in 1914.

The Germans lost WWI. The Treaty of Versailles, made by the Allied powers of that war (U.S., Great Britain, France, and Italy) severely punished the Germans for their role in the war. Some of the conditions imposed upon them were: drastic decreases in the size of the German military, demilitarization of the Rhineland (which left their western border defenseless), acceptance of all responsibility for all losses and damaged caused by the conflict and surrender of the Alsace-Lorraine region to the French.

This was one of the reasons why WWII started: WWI had given Germany such a blow that guys like Hitler, who blamed many of the problems that sprung up as a result of the Treaty on the Jews, became pretty popular. But that is another story.

Fast forward to 1940-1941. After the Germans defeated the French and set up their puppet government, the Vichy regime, Germany annexed the Alsace-Lorraine region. Le Struthof was built. At first it held German criminals; later, it held political prisoners such as French resistance fighters, as well as some Jews.

Remember that Le Struthof was not a death camp. All the "death" camps were located in Poland. But thousands of people still died in the work camps. I am not sure of the exact count, but I believe the death toll for Le Struthof is somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000.

All this, from 1941 to 1944.

* * *

We traveled for some time, from Strasbourg to a small village in the Vosges Mountains. The bus passed the village and rumbled to the base of a mountain where a long, winding road directed us upward. I read the sign as we passed:

Le Struthof Camp, 6 km

For several minutes we ascended. Our bus was slow and swung wildly on each turn as if it would fly off over the edge, tumbling down the steep, wooded slopes of the mountain. There were many people on this bus; fifty-one Americans (mostly teenagers, but with about a dozen or more adults as chaperones), our French bus driver, and our bilingual tour guide, Carine. She had been reading us accounts of the experiences of former prisoners while they were at this particular camp, but she had stopped at the base of the mountain. Most of the students, and a few of the chaperones, were dozing.

Then Carine said, "This road was built by the inmates of the camp we are visiting."

I was surprised to see a few dwellings along the road: a restaurant and maybe two or three houses. We passed a concrete building under construction and several trailers; no one was at the site, however, because it was a Saturday. Then, a large stone monument reaching into the air, sort of shaped like a flame, came into sight.

The bus turned around, giving me a clear view of little, neat rows with cross markers on them, on the hillside under the monument. The driver parked just past the monument, and, after waking up those who had been sleeping, we stepped off the bus.

The air was crisp and clean. There was a little breeze; enough to make me want to put on my jacket but not enough to make me cold. I gazed at the breathtaking view. The mountains appeared to be bluish gray, their color more the colors of a painter's brush than a work of nature. I could see two little groups of villages, sheltered by the mountains. Evergreen trees covered their sides.

The group was moving. I followed, staying close to Carine as she went down the paved road, to the entrance of the camp and the ticket booths.

My first image of the camp was those all too familiar gates that you see in every Holocaust movie. The German name of the camp, Konsentrationslager Natzwiller-Struthof, hung over the entrance. Three layers of barbed wire fence encircled the whole camp, with a guard tower every few hundred feet or so. The camp did not seem that big to me, perhaps because few buildings were still standing.

I stood on my tiptoes to try to see into the camp so I could take pictures, for Carine had just announced that cameras would not be allowed into the camp. (I was not taking pictures out of disrespect; rather it was to show my father. He's the one who got me interested in history, especially concerning the World War II era, in the first place.)

I could see that the hillside appeared to be cut into terraces, long platforms made of earth on which to put buildings. The highest terrace held two long, low barracks, painted a sort of gray-blue color. Carine told us that each barrack held about 250 people, giving each terrace about 500 people.

I saw two other buildings at the bottom of the hill, on the last terrace. They were of the same gray-blue color. I thought they were barracks as well. The other terraces had no buildings; just empty rows.

A hush fell over our group. I looked over the hill, where there was a Lanterne des Morts (literally "lantern of deaths"). I could not see if it was lit.

Carine then told us that she had been mistaken; we could take pictures inside the camp. Then the gates opened for us to go inside.

The two barracks at the top of the hill were closed to visitors. On the second terrace, however, there was a gallows, high enough to be seen from any part of the camp.

We went down the hill, past the remains of gardens prisoners tended for the SS and the other terraces, heading towards the two buildings at the bottom of the hill. We were almost at the bottom when I realized that one of the buildings has a long, black pipe sticking out of the roof. This was not a barrack, as I had assumed. Carine informed us that that building was the crematorium and, strangely enough, held the offices of the SS officers. The one next to it was the "punishment center."

She said a few more things about the camp, and then let us explore the camp on our own.

The majority of people headed to the crematorium. I stayed back and looked up the hill at an Orthodox cross erected nearby. I was surprised; I could see so many crosses everywhere. Every grave at the top of the hill had a cross on it. At the very bottom of the hill there was a simple cross in the ground, with words of honor for those who gave their lives for liberty. Carine had talked a lot about Jewish prisoners, but I got the impression that most of the prisoners here had been resistance fighters rather than Jewish.

A sign near the cross said that ashes from the crematorium were tossed down the hill on the spot where the cross now lay.

I wiped some wetness from my eyes. I am sort of a strange person: I try to play macho at times because I consider myself crying as a sign of weakness. Other people can cry, and I would think nothing less of them. But I think it is unacceptable in me. I have even gone through funerals without shedding a tear, because I am so uncomfortable with showing my emotions in front of people.

A few moments later my eyes were clear. I headed into the second building with Valerie, avoiding the large group in the crematorium.

This particular structure had once been a punishment center. There was not much to see: just a hallway with doors leading into small, bland rooms with smaller barred windows. In between each room was a miniature compartment with an iron door dotted with air holes. The compartments were not big enough to stand up straight, but not wide enough to sit in either. The Nazis used to made people squat for days in these compartments.

After seeing all these empty rooms, some with collapsed ceilings, some with working electricity, we headed back towards the entrance. One room by the entrance contained a small wooden table. The sign nearby told us that the Nazis used to strap people to this table and beat them.

The thought chilled me. And then I noticed a thin object lay on the table: a single red rose, shriveled and dried up.

Valerie and I left the punishment center and headed towards the crematorium, where we met our French teacher, Madame G (Madame for short). She told us that she was getting chills from this place. Valerie left Madame and I, so we continued on to the back entrance to the crematorium without her.

I remember talking to Madame of all the books I had read and the movies I had seen about the Holocaust, and how they did not compare to the real thing. She agreed with me as we approached the entrance, which was still rather crowded with half a dozen people trying to get in.

We stepped through the door, and immediately saw a large oven, blackened from soot, with a stretcher on which bodies had once been placed to send them through the furnace. On the stretcher were beautiful red, blue, yellow flowers, not yet wilted.

I burst into tears. I tried to wipe them away, I tried to gather myself and take in this experience, because no one else in the room was even shedding a tear, but I literally started sobbing. It was the thought of this place, of the SS lifting bodies from the basement to the burning oven, bodies that probably looked like skeletons from starvation and horrible living conditions, which made me cry out for the victims.

We were almost on the other side of the oven by the time Madame realized that I was crying. She grabbed my arm. "Okay, let's go," she said, trying to pull me towards the entrance.

I shook my head. "No."

"Let's leave."

"No! I want to see this place, Madame. I have to see it."

She held onto my arm, refusing to believe me as I insisted that I had to take pictures for my father. My stubbornness beat hers for once; but it did not keep her from hanging at my elbow throughout the rest of this experience.

Through a window in a room next to the furnace we saw showers. "It's a gas chamber," Valerie said, who had caught up to us by this time.

"No it's not," I said, finding my voice. "The gas chamber is outside the camp. I think this is a shower for the SS officers." Then I wondered if the heat from the ovens heated the water for the officers' showers.

We went to another wing of the building. Here we passed two SS offices. The only things that remained were the sinks and the yellowing wallpaper. There was an urn room too. According to the sign, the families of the German prisoners could pay to have their loved one's ashes sent to them, but there was no guarantee that the urn they received contained their loved one's ashes.

Next to that was a barracks where the "guinea pigs" of sick experiments were kept to be tested and observed, test subjects of experiments that did not need to be performed for the good of mankind, but were carried out anyway in the name of science.

And right next to that room was the morgue.

There was one last room, right next to the oven. The room was nothing very special at firsts glance. It was completely empty, with one window, and a floor that sloped down to a drain in the center of the room.

It was here that the SS shot and killed people. They washed the blood away, down the drain, and then put the bodies through the oven.

I cannot remember if I cried at the sight of that room. Although I did not take a picture of that room, the image of it is still burned into my mind, as is my imaginings of the horrors that room has seen.

There was nothing else to see in the crematorium and apparently I looked terrible, because Madame then took my arm and led me to the open air. She began to head back up the hill, delicately saying how unbelievable it was that all this happened so recently. Valerie started to ask some questions about the Holocaust, and Madame answered as best as she could, all the while shooting glances at me, who was still sniffling every now and then.

And then I talking about the ghetto raids, zyklon B, images of bodies… one particular image is stuck in my mind, of a little baby… but it is really too horrible to describe, so I will not mention it. But I started bawling again.

We were at the top of the hill now. The entrance was 150 meters away. Madame grabbed my arm again. "Okay, let's get out of here now."

"No!" I just wanted her and Valerie to go away.

"Come on Meg, let's go," Valerie said softly.

"The exit is right there," Madame murmured, pulling me gently towards it.

"I'm all right, really," I claimed, rapidly wiping tears away, but sobbing even harder.

"We're almost there…"

"Madame, please!" I cried. She stopped and looked at me. "I just want to look at it."

She looked worried, confused, and upset. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Please, I just want to see it."

She released my arm as I walked, in a daze, down the steps between the two barracks at the top of the hill. I stepped up to a memorial and pretended to read it. I heard Valerie and Madame murmuring, before hearing footsteps on the stairs behind me.

"You ok?" Valerie asked. I turned back at the sound of her voice. Madame was heading towards the entrance.

"Yes," I whispered, still crying. I just wanted Valerie to leave me alone so I could sort out my mixed emotions.

Who can comfort you from the memories your imagination creates, of pain that you really cannot truly feel, but want to feel, almost NEED to feel to believe that it actually happened, that people can really be so heartless and cruel to each other?

Valerie started up a conversation, but I interrupted her, saying, "I can't believe I'm here."

"Yeah," she said cautiously. "Creepy, huh?"

"I mean, I am the first person in my family to visit a concentration camp. They're never going to know exactly what I saw, no matter how many pictures I take."

"Yeah," she said.

"I wrote a story once about Nazi Germany." I realized I was rambling, but it was the only way for me to distract myself from any idea that would start the tears again. "Tried to write a few poems about the Holocaust too. But then I realized that I was just trying to rewrite the story of 'Schindler's List' in free verse."

"That is a sad movie."

"And that Holocaust Game the sophomores play in Mr. Wetzel's history class every year…"

"Yeah, you helped him with that," Valerie reminded me.

I frowned at the memory. The Holocaust Game is a role-playing game based on the Vilna ghetto in Lithuania. The teacher, Mr. Wetzel, pretends to be a Nazi, who is trying to 'alleviate' the overcrowding problems in this Jewish ghetto by gradually eliminating students. One other student (this past school year it was me), pretends to be a native who is aiding the Germans in their scheme by handing out the documents the students are required to have in the ghetto. By the end of the game, usually every single student has been 'eliminated.' All I can remember is that by the end of that day, I was thrown into a depression because of the game, wondering how so many people went like sheep to the slaughter without putting up a fight.

"It was so hard trying to be mean to everyone," I said. "I had to yell at people who weren't taking it seriously."

Valerie nodded. We both stared at the gallows.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing to a black, box-like thing near the gallows.

"Think it's a wheelbarrow."

"Why would they put that near…" she pointed to the gallows.

I shrugged. Turning towards the steps, I said, "I've seen enough."

I went back through the entrance to the area outside. I met my friend Megan, who pointed to the flame-like memorial that towers over the camp. "Come with me," she said. I followed her.

We stood respectfully before the memorial for a few minutes while Megan took pictures. Then we went around it, to the graves for the resistance fighters. At least, I thought it was for them, because all the graves had crosses on them.

We tried to remember names, dates, but there were too many of them. Then one grave caught Megan's eye. "Look!" she exclaimed, pointing to one cross. "It says 'Inconnu'."

"That's strange… must mean 'Unknown.' But how can they know that? I thought the bodies were burned. Why are these graves here?"

She shrugged. "There's another one, over there."

"And another," I said, pointing to one.

We continued our walk, pointing out the 'Inconnus' every once in a while, my questions still buzzing through my head. Why were there graves here? Did they actually contain the remains of the names on the crosses? I remembered the room with the slanting floor, the one with the drain, a sign on the wall of 107 people killed two days in September 1944. Did they burn those bodies? Or were they buried?

Eventually we noticed the majority of our group boarding the bus, so we headed back. But before we left, I tried to find the gas chamber. They said it was right next to the camp, and I saw a sign for it, but I think it was further away than we expected. I do not think I wanted to see it anyway.

As soon as the bus started up again, about thirty teenagers pulled on their headphones and blasted music. Some people went to sleep. Others murmured quietly amongst themselves.

I felt so emotionally drained, but I pulled out my journal. I knew that I had to get everything down, before I either forgot or lost the emotion.

Fifty minutes later I closed my journal, sat back, and closed my eyes.

I felt empty inside, as if I was one of those skeletons in the photos of concentration camps I had seen in textbooks and documentaries. Almost… guilty, for being so lucky to have a good life. There are problems and difficulties in my life, and they always seem like such a big deal to me. But then I realize how much worse other people's lives have been, and my problems seem trivial compared to them. Is that necessarily a bad thing? I do not think so. I would not be human if I did not have problems.

But compared to the horrors the victims of the Holocaust went through each and every day…

We cannot compare it, I guess. The only way to truly empathize is to go through the experience ourselves, something no one hopes will happen.

As my eyes scanned the bus, my gaze falling on dozing forms and headphones, I wondered how much my fellow travelers had actually learned. Some did not seem to care. Quite a few people, however, had seemed interested, asking Carine questions, respectfully poking into the past. But I felt like I was still stuck in the past.

It was when we were looking for a café in Colmar did I gradually come back to reality. And, surprisingly enough, I was not ashamed. Not for the crying; not for recovering from the misery of that place. I knew that I could not live forever in the nightmare of the camp. The experience was the worst single hour of my life, but also one that I will forever hold as sacred, to the memory of those who lived and died there.

Looking back on it, I would not take that experience back for the world. The worst acts humanity has committed occurred there, and yet the best humans have to offer was there for all to see. Just look at the neat little rows of graves on a mountaintop in Alsace-Lorraine. 'Inconnu' or not, there are people out there who are willing to die for a just cause.

* * *

_I apologize for any moments where I am rambling. I do not want reviews for this, because it is not fanfiction. Just thinking that people might be reading this is enough for me. _


End file.
